LOC - Liquid - Oil - Cream. This leave-in method is quite popular amongst curlies and wavies as far as I know, and though it seems like a styling method, it can also be used by those of us who don't wear our hair loose. It makes the hair soft, shiny, and easy to manage. The LOC-thread on LHC has a lot more information, and many success stories too, including mine. I decided to try it out a few weeks or so ago, and I can only say that I'm amazed by the results I've gotten. I have very dry hair, and it has always been difficult to make it soft and properly moisturized. Leave-in conditioners helped a bit, but not enough, Panacea/salve did make it soft and nice, but I had to apply it every day to keep up the effect. The result was that my hair became a lint & dust magnet, which meant more tangles.
I was skeptical to trying LOC and I put it off for a long while, mainly because putting oil on wet hair has always given me stringy, icky hair. I decided to do my own little twist on it, as many in the LOC-thread has done too, and I mixed the oil and cream before applying. I used First Price conditioner as leave-in, Nightblooming's Triple Moon Hair Anointing Oil as oil (duh!) and Nightblooming's Freya Salve as cream. Here's what I did:
-Wash and condition hair as usual, squeeze out excess water, and apply coney leave-in conditioner.
-Gently wrap a towel around the hair and let it towel dry while I get dressed.
- Remove towel and put all hair over either right or left shoulder. Carefully separate the biggest clumps.
- Scrape up a small amount of Freya salve and put it in my hand. Add 3-4 drops of Triple Moon oil, and rub palms together for a bit. Stroke hands all over the hair, even above the ears, but mainly on the length and ends. Then let it airdry.
This method makes my hair incredibly soft and shiny, and so easy brush with my TT. I don't have to put any panacea/salve on it after it has dried, it actually stays soft and wonderful until next wash day. It's pretty amazing. I've only tried it with Freya salve and Triple Moon oil, but I'm interested to try the other salves too, and Khadi Amla Oil.
I don't write much about the products I put on my hair. I recently updated the Haircare section a bit, but I think that's all. The main reason for not writing about haircare, is that my routine is terribly unexciting. I don't experiment with new products and oils, never do deep treatments, never do anything special. I've found shampoos and conditioners that work for me, and I'm sticking with them. I was more adventurous when I first joined LHC and started learning about haircare. I tried conditioner-only washing (disaster!), and shampoo bars, which I used for a year or so. I stopped in January (or maybe it was February) this year, for a bunch of reason that I may write about on some other occasion. I successfully transitioned back to SLS/SLES shampoos, and I'm very happy about it.
Shampoo:
I have two shampoos that I really like, both are called Change. The purple one is for normal and fine hair, and the other is for dry and damaged hair. My hair fits in the latter category, but both shampoos work really well. They don't dry my scalp out like many other shampoos do, so I don't get flakies after using them.
Conditioner:
I use the cheapest conditioners I find, and they actually work really well for me. I condition my hair twice when I wash, first with a cone-free one, and then with a mix of cone-free and coney conditioner. For cone-free, I use SoftStyle (find them at Rema1000) and Xtra (find them in the Coop stores). For coney, I use FirstPrice. I also use this one as my leave-in conditioner.
How I wash:
I start by making my shampoo mixture in a small pump bottle. I use a bit of shampoo, 3 drops of Nightblooming's Triple Moon Hair Anointing Oil, and enough water to make it fairly runny. I never fill the entire bottle, that would be way too much.
I always detangle my hair before I get in the shower, because wet detangling doesn't work for me. I also oil my scalp with either Triple Moon Anointing Oil or Khadi Amla Oil before washing. I leave it on for at least 30 minutes, sometimes overnight.
First I wash my scalp with the shampoo dilution. I put a few pumps all over my head, lather a bit, and then rinse out. Then I apply cone-free conditioner to the length of my hair, and put the remaining shampoo mix on my head. Lather and rinse. I then apply cone-free conditioner on my length again, and let it sit for a minute or so before applying coney conditioner on top of it. Let it sit for a few minutes, and then rinse thoroughly.
And that's it. I put leave-in on afterwards, but I'll write about that in a different post.
I've put myself on a hairtoy-purchasing-ban, but there are a few items I'd really like to buy after I get my paycheck. I'm very pleased that I haven't bought anything for my hair after I imposed the ban, despite seeing a lot of things that were very tempting. I'm not able to stay away from Etsy, and I'm adding stuff to my lists almost every day, but not buying anything. Willpower! Apparently I have lots of it. It also helps that I already have lots of sticks and clips. Ah well, back to my tiny little wishlist.
1. Another Tangle Teezer. I love the Hot Pink one I have, and I've decided that I need at least one more in a different colour. What if I accidentally broke my TT? What would I use to keep my hair tangle-free until a new TT arrived?? That's an easy one, I would just use my wooden comb, but that's not the point. I need a colourful, glorious backup TT! I'm leaning towards an orange or a blue one..
 |
| Pretty!! |
2. A plain hairstick from Emergent Glassworks. I adore EGW sticks and have quite a few already, but I'd love a clear spiral stick too. Those never really caught my eye in the shop, but I saw one in action on LHC a while ago, and it looked magnificent! So beautiful. It would be good for the days when I don't want the hair toy to get all the attention.
3. A Flexi-8 or two. The flexi was actually the only toy I would be allowed to purchase during my ban, because they're fairly cheap. This was just in case the Flexi-8 of the Month was stunning and something I just had to buy. The March 2014 FOTM has been delayed a week, so I have no idea if it's something I want or not. And I'm not buying anything until my payday, so if I love it, I can only buy it if there are any left by then. I'd love to get the Daisy flexi too. I didn't like the design in the beginning, but it has grown on me. I'd love to wear that one during the summer. Such a fun clip.
And that's actually it. Only 3-4 things, approximately 87 euro if I buy two flexis, only 63 euro if I only buy one. That includes shipping as well. Not bad, compared to what I used to spend on hair stuff every month *shudder*
A few days ago I realised that I only had 1 bar of Chagrin Valley Nettle shampoo and 1/2 bar of Rosemary Lavender left. With my hair, 1 bar typically lasts for 8 washes. This means that I have approximately 12 washes left before I'm out of shampoo bars. I usually wash every 3-4 days, or whenever I feel like it. Let's just make it easy and say twice a week. 12 washes, 2 per week means that my shampoo bars will last for 6 weeks.
I order my shampoo bars online, because no shops here carry the sort of super fancy, natural, chemical-free stuff I like to cleanse my hair with. Since these things come from abroad, shipping could take some time. I'm also a very lazy and forgetful person. If I don't act quickly, there's a risk that I may run out of shampoo bars!
This is why I decided to spend $49,95 on shampoo bars from SweetCreekHerbs. Well, half of that was shipping, but it was still quite a bit of money spent on shampoo. But! This was a package deal of 5 shampoo bars, so I actually saved money! And with 5 shampoo bars, I should have enough to wash my hair twice a week for 15 weeks. These bars are a little bit smaller than the bars from Chagrin Valley, so each bar lasts for about 6 washes.
I think I have justified my crazy spending sufficiently. Here's a random picture of me and a parrot.
